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POLITICO 44

While Democratic or independent Iowans saw ads for cellphones or toothpaste as they loaded up local news clips, television shows on Hulu or college football highlights, likely caucus-goers got 15 or 30 seconds of Bachmann talking about her Waterloo heritage.

On YouTube, ads can be targeted based on either category — news, politics, entertainment — or geography, by city or ZIP code. But Bachmann’s campaign says it was able to target much more narrowly, cross-referencing Internet user data, gathered by programs called “cookies, with voter files that have long directed mail, phone, and door-knocking efforts.”

This marks the arrival into presidential politics of a medium that offers the virtues of targeted mailings and robocalls with the traditional power of a television ad — along with added interactive benefits available on some in-stream video to click through to a candidate’s website, or share the ad with other users. Already a central force in rallying supporters for fundraising and organizing, the Web ads have begun to serve as a medium for winning new voters.

“While we still very much used traditional media — broadcast, cable, and radio — to reach straw poll voters, the [Ron] Paul and [Tim] Pawlenty campaigns actually spent more on it,” said Nick Everhart of the the Strategy Group for Media, Bachmann’s media consulting firm. “In-stream and pre-roll online advertising was a medium we were able to use exclusively to deliver messaging for Bachmann, and we believe it was a real difference-maker.”

Bachmann won the straw poll, and though the effect her ads had on the tiny electorate is impossible to measure, the statistics are impressive: More than half a million Iowans saw the videos, and roughly 75 percent sat through them to completion — a rate that suggests the targeting worked, Everhart said. And while Bachmann’s campaign had the online video field to itself in the run-up to Ames, people who follow the technology closely said they expect it to be used widely this campaign cycle.

“I think this will be the cycle where online ads break through as a persuasion medium,” said Mindy Finn of the Republican interactive agency Engage.

God Michelle needs to really ease up on the botox. She is becoming unrecognizeable.It is also fueling the rumors that she is bat chit crazy. I don't think she is but she sure looks like she is. Looks like a cross between Burt Reynolds and Leona Helmsley. YIKES